Calves

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

Either you have extremely high strung pedigrees, or you have not been a part of their life back when they were born. I have never seen a herd that the calves respond like you are describing, except a herd that never sees people.

 

[Warren Allison]

@tcolvin is there a creek or a pond that your cows use for water? If not, put your water troughs inside the back of the corral, and make sure they have no access to water anywhere else. Same thing with salt/mineral feeder and blocks, hay rings, etc. but for sure, the water.

 

[farmerjan]

We had a group of about 7-10 calves on one group of cows that were very high strung... cows would come right in the catch pens, came running to buckets with some grain in the troughs... but this group of calves were all very skittish. I even looked and there were 3 different bulls that were sires of these calves, too... No earthly reason for it. There were about 35 head at this place, and this one group was just stupid skittish. The rest of the calves would come in with the cows once they learned that this was "good stuff"... and mom didn't seem worried... but this group were just a royal PITA... 2 ring leaders in the group... took an extra hour or more, to get them in the pen... had a 3 section pen and had to get the cows in and penned in the inner section, then 2 real "grain hog cows" that were super easy to get in... left out in the middle section... that we knew we could get in anytime... to finally haze the nutty ones into the "outside section" and shut the gate in a hurry.... almost lost them.... they never liked coming in the barn for feed and I was very glad to see them leave. 2 NICE heifers in there, one out one of my biggest "pet" cow... and I couldn't get rid of her fast enough...

Mostly our cows all come to call for some grain... it is a treat for them and we don't bring animals in without some sort of a "reward"... most times we do not do anything but give a little feed and just check them over.... but occasionally have some idiots.

Got 2 heifers and 3 steers in the weaned ones now that are just "stupid idiots".... one heifer is nice... out of a good cow... she will be leaving whenever we ship some of these...

 

[Travlr]

We had a group of about 7-10 calves on one group of cows that were very high strung... cows would come right in the catch pens, came running to buckets with some grain in the troughs... but this group of calves were all very skittish. I even looked and there were 3 different bulls that were sires of these calves, too... No earthly reason for it.... most times we do not do anything but give a little feed and just check them over.... but occasionally have some idiots.

Got 2 heifers and 3 steers in the weaned ones now that are just "stupid idiots"....

Docility is one of the most heritable traits. All traits are more or less heritable, and docility is on the high end of that list of traits.

I worked for a guy that trailered a two year old, $100K bull to the slaughterhouse because the bull was a bad actor. The owner valued his reputation more than the money.

There was a Limousin bull in the early eighties that had a great reputation for being a "complete" package, including high docility ratings... and his calves were excellent just like him... but the next generation tended to be extremely wild. The bull was weeded from most herds due to his grand-progeny being hard to handle.